A telephone drop wire consists of two solid or stranded wire conductors alongside each other within a sheath of insulation. The wire provides electrical power and ground return to a telephone subscriber's building, such as a residence. The drop wire is terminated to a terminal block outside the building. The individual telephones within the building are wired to the terminal block, and consequently are connected to the power and ground return provided by the terminated drop wire.
The standard procedure for terminating the drop wire conductors, is to strip the insulation sheath from the ends of the conductors, loop and wrap the exposed ends of the conductors around respective threaded, conductive binding posts which are mounted on the terminal block, and threadably advance nuts along the posts tightly against the wires. The quality of the resulting electrical connections depends upon the skill and thoroughness by which the laborious tasks are performed. In the case of stranded wire, stripping exposes hard drawn steel strands which can not be satisfactorily looped around the binding post.